Unbeaten Southington Rolls Past Cheshire, 44-7

SOUTHINGTON — Southington completed an undefeated regular season Saturday and will be the top seed in the Class LL-large playoffs when the Blue Knights begin their quest to repeat as state champions next week.

Jasen Rose, Southington's offensive MVP, completed 29 of 35 passes for 417 yards and four touchdowns as the Blue Knights (10-0) defeated Cheshire 44-7 in the Apple Valley Classic at Fontana Field. Southington will host Glastonbury in a state semifinal Saturday. The Blue Knights beat the Tomahawks 41-38 in the season opener in Southington.

The Rams (8-3) missed out on the playoffs and wound up 12th in the LL rankings.

Senior Alex Jamele caught nine passes Saturday for 133 yards and two touchdowns. Jamele's second score, on a 41-yard reception in the third quarter, was the 47th TD catch of his career, breaking the state record established by Bristol Central's Aaron Hernandez in 2006.

But Jamele wasn't Rose's only target. Matt Maxwell had nine catches for 112 yards and two touchdowns, and Austin Morin caught five passes for 87 yards, including a 41-yard TD reception in the second quarter. Kyle Borawski also hauled in five passes for 69 yards.

"That's what you look for," Rose said. "You try to spread the ball around. What started it off was Alex making that 50-yard touchdown, that got the emotions high."

Jamele caught a 51-yard touchdown pass on the first drive of the game. Maxwell's 28-yard touchdown reception gave the Blue Knights a 14-0 lead in the second quarter. An 87-yard kickoff return by Cheshire's Colin Thorne cut Southington's lead to 14-7. But the Blue Knights would score the next 30 points on TD passes from Rose to Maxwell, Morin and Jamele and a 1-yard run by Alessio Diana.

"[Rose] knows it all," Southington coach Mike Drury said of Rose's mastery of the high-tempo offense. "He played great and the receivers play great."

The Blue Knights' defense was also on its game. Cheshire's Andrew Yamin was held in check, rushing for 35 yards on 17 carries.

"They've had a tremendous amount of success running the football," Drury said. "When you've got a team like that, you want to stop what they're great at and try to force them to beat you another way."

Senior linebacker Matt Thompson was named Southington's defensive MVP after returning an interception 65 yards into Cheshire territory and recovering a fumble.

Cheshire's Jack Cunningham had 46 yards on eight carries and made two catches for 51 yards. Josh MacNiven completed 5 of 10 passes for 100 yards, but the Rams committed five turnovers.

"They made more plays than we did and that's the nature of this thing," said Cheshire coach Don Drust. "You can't turn the ball over…that's nothing that I came up with. That's football. You can't lose the turnover battle and you have to make plays when you have the opportunity to make plays."

Said Drury: "Defensively, our guys flew to the ball. They tackled well. Line of scrimmage, point of attack, we had a great game plan in and they followed it to a T."

Cheshire's MVPs in the game were Cunningham and Tyler D'Errico, who had an interception.

"It is tough," D'Errico said of covering Southington's receivers. "They have a great receiving core. Obviously, it didn't go our way today."

Rose refused to look beyond Glastonbury.

"Obviously we want to win the state championship, but that's not our focus right now," Rose said. "We've got one game ahead of us and that's our focus."